A poignant, engaging, and illuminating tribute to a vanishing breed.
A dissertation on an extraordinary aboriginal working dog that enabled humans to explore Earth’s polar regions.
Ottawa, Ontario–based librarian Han was introduced to Canadian Inuit dogs by her late daughter, Siu-Ling Han, who lived on Baffin Island, part of Canada’s Arctic archipelago. Siu-Ling bred and raised her dogs according to Inuit traditions and led her hearty sled teams on treks through hundreds of miles along the Arctic tundra. The author began this debut volume as a course assignment at the Institute for Children’s Literature, and it resulted in a full-length, in-depth compendium that explores the importance of this unique dog to traditional Inuit culture. In Inuktitut, the Inuit language, the word for dog is “qimmiq,” and dogs have a special status that’s separate from the rest of the animal kingdom. Aboriginal dogs are domesticated, but they’ve “never been developed by any planned genetic manipulation,” according to an academic paper by Vladimir Beregovoy that Han quotes. The dogs and the ancestors of the Inuit people shared a seminomadic lifestyle for at least 1,000 years; however, the second half of the 20th century brought disease, societal changes, and snowmobiles, which posed challenges to the animals’ survival. For example, cultural misunderstandings resulted in the deaths of thousands of Inuit dogs over multiple decades; wandering canines were killed by officials who saw them as threats to the public. In this book, Han relies heavy on meticulously sourced, secondary research, which is truly comprehensive. However, the use of in-text references sometimes interrupts the flow of the narrative. Similarly, the author’s extensive discussion of scientific nomenclature for various dog breeds is unlikely to interest many casual readers. Serious dog enthusiasts, however, will find that there’s a wealth of information to be found, including a detailed breakdown of external and internal physiological features that distinguish Inuit dogs and enable them to thrive in Arctic environments. Han’s interviews with Inuit elders are especially captivating, as are the many full-color photos that she includes of the dogs and their surroundings.
A poignant, engaging, and illuminating tribute to a vanishing breed.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-943824-42-7
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Revodana Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.
The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.
The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-14274-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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